I will attempt to write about stuff that interests me. It will involve rugby, education (teaching in particular) comics (mostly Marvel), hockey (not ice), TV shows, movies, books, podcasts I listen to and anything else that happens to pique my interest.
I like to think I am some what skeptical but I have noticed that I do find myself switching sides occasionally.

01 April 2010

Capril: Swirl on a cape during the month of April

The year was 2007 and the month was April. Tony Martin, Ed Kavalee and Richard Marsland on their highly popular radio show Get This, discussed novelty month names such as Rocktober (Rock + October), Schweptember (Schweppes + September) and Movember (Moustaches + November) and made a few suggestions of their own. The most popular was Capril where participants would swirl on a cape for the entire month of April. Now what started as a silly idea slowly built momentum and soon the boys were asking for listeners to send in photos of themselves wearing a cape in everyday situations. The less interesting the better. Prizes included a special Capril t-shirt and the overall winner received an iMac.

At the end of the year the show was cancelled so Capril didn't get a repeat.

So lets skip forward to December in 2008.

Ed was working on Nova and Thank God Your Here, Tony was apparently working on a new book and Richard was hosting/panelling Triple M Melbourne's Breakfast show.

I know where I was Saturday morning on the 6th of December. I was sitting at my parents computer catching up on the overnight news. It was there that I stumbled across this article Melbourne breakfast radio host found dead on a Fairfax news website.

My immediate reaction was anger. What had happened? Who has done this? How could something like this happen to such a great guy?

It was about now that the line "Police said the 32-year-old Caulfield man's death is not thought to be suspicious." started to sink in. I went and asked to my mum about it and she confirmed my suspicion. My immediate reaction was to swear. I couldn't believe it. Not Richard. Why would he do this? I felt let down, betrayed even. Richard was just so positive. A genuinely nice guy. In the years that I had known of him I had never heard of anyone saying thing bad about him.

As far as his fans new Richard had just completed quite a successful year as the operator of Triple M's Melbourne breakfast show. Sure ratings were down but Richard was turning in comedy gold day after day with Myf Warhurst and Pete Hellier. Privately, Richard was struggling. His relationship had broken up, the low ratings were affecting him and he was apparently been told that his role in next year's show was to be cut back.

Ten years ago Richard had recovered, after much counselling, from a severe case of depression. His mother has been quite open about it all since his passing and it was enlightening to hear that this amazing man had been down such a dark path.

So here is the part where I explain why I felt betrayed by Richard.
Known only to my family, my girlfriend and a few others I had been down a similar path. I was dealing with my own depression at the time and my immediate thought was "Well if someone like him can't make it what chances do I have."

Now I am not going to go into any more details about this but I'll just let you all know that I am back on track and I'm heading in the right direction.

One of the best events that occurred after his death was Tony, Ed and Matty D on pots and pans released a special podcast called "Richard Marsland Lives" on iTunes (It is still there go have a listen). It was a compilation of Richard's most memorable bits from Get This. The guys will probably never know how much it helped.

So in 2009 April rolled around again and it was amazing. Within the small world of Get This fans Capril took off quite similarly to how Get This gained its' popularity. Slow and steady. Some money was raised for both Beyond Blue and The Black Dog Institute. But the biggest part of the month was the ground swell of Richard Marsland quotes. Twitter was abuzz with #ImRichard tags followed by some of his best quotes.

It is now Capril 2010 and it is beginning again. I currently have a beach towel, a couple of bull clips and string around my neck. Later I am going to hit the remnant bin at Spotlight to find something better. I will also be re-subscribing to the Richard Marsland Lives podcast to boost its numbers. There will be some #ImRichard twittering but I will also be donating to Beyond Blue in Richard's honour. So click on the link below and support the cause.http://www.everydayhero.com.au/capril2010